Series 1, Episode 1
"Arriving in Paradise" is the first episode of the first series of BBC's Death in Paradise. It is the first episode of the series overall. It premiered on 25 October, 2011. It was written by Robert Thorogood and directed by Charles Palmer. Plot Charlie Hulme, a British detective inspector, is murdered in a locked panic room on the Caribbean island of Saint Marie. Commissioner Selwyn Patterson demands that a UK officer investigates Charlie's death, so DI Richard Poole flies out to Saint Marie to solve the mystery. Richard learns that Charlie was having an affair with Sarah, one of the residents on the island, providing Sarah's husband with a motive to murder. Richard is convinced he has solved the case, but then Sarah's husband is also murdered, forcing Richard to look deeper into the case, and search for a mysterious woman seen at the house on the day of Charlie's death. Synopsis On the beautiful island of Saint-Marie, two men are playing basketball near the beachfront. A police vehicle driven by Officer Lily Thomson arrives. She notices the two men playing and pulls up alongside them. As she does so, the men stop and turn to face her, she looks at one of them expectantly. One of the men sighs at her exasperatedly. Meanwhile, in the police station, Officer Thomson stands impatiently with a stopwatch while a man attempts to usher a goat towards him with the intention of proving it's his, to Officer Fidel's refusal. DCI Humes stands behind, amused at the situation. DCI Humes tells Officer F that goats aren't obedient and don't respond to being called the way dogs do. To that, Fidel clicks his tongue at the goat, who promptly saunters over to him and into a back room. Soon, the police vehicle returns to Honoré Police Station driven by Officer. One of the men playing basketball, now revealed as a police officer, exits the vehicle and retrieves the other man he was playing basketball with but in handcuffs. As they enter the station, he tells DCI Humes that he's apprehended the man, to DCI Humes' admiration. Placing him in a cell, the man bristles at being placed in it, to which Dwayne asks him if he would rather be placed in the neighboring cell, currently occupied by the goat. He tells him he should stop stealing yachts. In the main room, DCI Humes tells Officer Thomson that he is going to leave early for the night, to which she and Officer Myers wish him a good evening. He steps down the pathway from the station in the night. Meanwhile, a house party on another part of the island is happening. A woman in a party dress, seemingly uninvited, grabs a drink from a waitress and makes her way through the crowds of dancing guests around the pool and garden area. She looks around the garden before placing the glass back to a waitress and heading inside the building. Looking behind her first, she steps through a curtained door. Someone can be seen entering the code to a locked safe and retrieving a notebook of some kind. In the garden, people continue to dance but suddenly a gunshot is heard. An alarm begins to wail before the woman slips back outside. At the police station, Dwayne is listening to the radio and playing with a pencil. A phone rings and Fidel answers it. Lily's phone also begins to ring, with the ringtone "I Shot the Sherriff" by Bob Marley and the Whalers, she promptly answers it. Fidel tells Dwayne that the call was about Lord Salcombe's house's alarm going off because the panic alarm had gone into lockdown. He tells him that the police have the codes to open it in the police safe. Dwayne ignores him to listen to the radio, to which Lily impatiently gets up to do it herself. The police vehicle makes its way to the scene. The woman that previously snuck into the house is now sneaking through trees on the driveway up to the house. She retrieves a phone from her dress, to call someone that there is a problem. A man meets Lily to explain to her that they were having a party and the alarm started blaring, explaining that someone is locked inside the panic room. She asks where the homeowners are, Lord and Lady Salcombe, and he tells her that no one has seen them since the alarm started. He explains to her that everybody had heard a gunshot. As they approach the safe room, shards of a broken vase sat atop a plinth are seen. She asks that everybody vacate the premises and not to touch anything. As the man is ushering everyone out, a distressed woman emerges and asks him what is happening. Lily enters the code taken from the police safe. Successfully, the alarm stops and Lily enters the panic room. Sounds of distress can be heard from Lily, repeating the word no, as the distressed woman asks who it is and whether James is in there. James then appears behind her, asking her why she thought he would be in there. Lily emerges from the panic room and demands that Lawrence call an ambulance. Lily, James and distressed woman then enter the panic room together, to the revelation that DI Charlie Hulme, with a gunshot to the neck, is seemingly dead on the floor. At the Saint-Marie airport, an Englishman walks through with Officer Lily and Commissioner Selwyn Patterson, informing them that the airport has lost his language. They point him in the direction of the baggage reclaim at his request. They looked at each other nonplussed as he walks off. Lily tells the Commissioner that they don't need outside help. He tells her that because Charlie Hulme was a British inspector, the British want a British inspector to investigate his death. At the baggage reclaim, the Englishman asks what time they open tomorrow morning. She tells him that they open at 6:00AM and he responds that he will ring them at 6:01AM. Exiting the airport, he is almost immediately blinded by the sun, trying to protect his eyes with his arm. Lily and the Commissioner look at him unimpressed as they walk towards the police vehicle. At the police station, Dwayne frustratingly hits the side of a computer monitor. He explains to Fidel, who is on the phone, that the monitor isn't working. Fidel explains that the crime scene has been cleared and all the evidence has been bagged and sent to the lab. He asks the person on the other end of the line when they will receive an autopsy report. He thanks them and hangs up, and the pair lean against the railing with a sigh. Fidel asks Dwayne if the man they are sending from London will be good. Dwayne remarks that nobody knows, and Fidel responds that they wouldn't just send anyone, but they are interrupting by the goat bleating. Fidel turns to leave to feed the goat, and Dwayne asks if the chief's monitor is still working. Fidel tells him it is and asks why. Dwayne enters with a grin on his face. On the way to the station, LIly, the Commissioner and the Englishman ride in the police vehicle. The Commissioner explains that Saint-Marie was colonised by the French, who lost it to the British, who lost it to the Dutch, who lost it to the French again. He explains that the French then handed it back to the British in the middle of the 1970's, and that 30% of the population is French. The Englishman, unenthused, remarks about the French, and how he thought it couldn't get any worse. Market traders and citizens can be seen as Lily pulls up outside the station. The Englishman looks around grimly at the loud market chatter, rotating around at the scene. Lily smirks, nodding him towards the station. They enter the station and the commissioner welcomes him. Dwayne whispers to someone on the phone that he has to go because the commissioner is here, and Fidel strides into the room with an empty bucket. The commissioner introduces Dwayne and Fidel to DI Richard Poole from the Metropolitan Police in London. Sweating and breathless, Richard thanks him, explaining that he will take over from here. Lily gestures to the empty desk, placing his bag and coat down. He asks for everything they have regarding DI Hulme's death on his desk immediately, asking them to contact IT for login details for his computer, telling him he needs to get on the network. They all look to each other unimpressed, with Dwayne muttering that he's a pen-pusher and that the situation isn't going to go well. Richard taps the side of the monitor, telling them it won't turn on. Dwayne looks shadily towards Fidel. The hubbub of the market continues as Richard and Lily exit the station. Richard complains about the heat while rifling through paperwork, with Lily telling him to remove his jacket. He huffs and says that DI Hulme has been dead for 48 hours, asking if that is all they have in terms of evidence. He asks for forensic reports, ballistics information and DNA evidence. Lily tells him they will have them all soon. He asks about a photo and Lily tells him everyone in the photo was on the guestlist for the party, apart from one lady with her back to the camera. None of the guests knew who she was and neither did Lord or Lady Salcombe. Richard asks about statements and Lily tells him they are in the file. He asks if it is always this hot, and Lily tells him it's not - it's sometimes a lot hotter. Sighing, he gets into the passenger seat. On the way to a beach hut, he tells Lily that this whole idea of being in the Caribbean is very nice but not really his ideal situation, telling her that as soon as he's solved the case of Charlie Hulme's death and has his luggage, he will return, explaining that he can't think why the Metropolitan Police had sent him to Saint-Marie. He looks around, asking Lily where they are. She tells him that she thought he might like to see where he was staying before they went to Lord Salcombe's house. She explains that the beach hut is where they accommodate foreign officers like him and Charlie Hulme, to Richard's surprise. She hands him the key, telling him she will pick him up in an hour. Richard enters the beach hut, looking unimpressed at the door, the sand on the floorboards and subsequently on his shoes and the fact that a tree runs right through the building. He picks up an empty wine bottle before scanning the area and stepping outside to survey the sea. Once again, as at the airport, Richard is blinded by the sun, trying to cover his eyes with his arm. He retreats inside, moving leaves and empty bottles out of the way to sit on the bed. He bounces lightly on the bed after it makes a squeaking noise before rifling through his bag and retrieving the case files. On the deck outside, he talks on the phone to a London colleague about his luggage being lost, the insufferable heat, the beach shack, and his in-tray and pending tray, explaining that he left a tangerine in his top drawer. He tells his colleague the Saint-Marie police force is pleased to have him there before Lily honks the horn of the police vehicle to pick him up. He begins to hang up the phone but catches himself on the railing and gets a splinter. He sucks the blood from his finger, and stands on the deck looking dismayed. Lily honks again, to which Richard shouts that he is coming. He exits the shack and glares angrily at the vehicle and presumably Lily before getting in. Behind him, in the trees and with a motorcycle, is the woman who snuck into the party. Richard and Lily arrive at the Salcombe's house. He asks her how Charlie was involved with Lord Salcombe. She tells him she doesn't know and Richard asks what he was like. She pointedly tells him that Charlie was fun, not a typical Englishman, charismatic. He asks her what she meant by a typical Englishman, but Lawrence opens the door, and Richard introduces himself with his badge. Through the house and into the garden, Lawrence explains that he was outside serving the drinks guests at just past 8:00PM. He explains that there was a gunshot from the study and the alarm went off. Richard asks what he did and Lawrence tells him he waited for the police to arrive. Richard asks if he saw the mysterious woman on the night and Lawrence looks at the photo of her and tells him he didn't. In the police station, Dwayne is on the phone to a Darleen, asking her if she has dirt on Richard. He tries to tempt her with offers of visiting the Bay Cove. With little success, the conversation ends with a goodbye and he puts the phone down, sighing. Dwayne explains that Richard's department threw a party when he left. Fidel remarks that he must be popular. Dwayne expands that they had the party after Richard had already gone. Meanwhile, Richard shines a laser tape measure. from the plinth in which a broken vase could be seen earlier. Lily asks what it is and he tells her, specifying its accuracy. She tells him that they have tape measures on Saint-Marie, to which he tells her that they don't have one like his. He tells her that when DI Charlie Hulme's body was found, he was holding a travel guide to Europe. He shows her the photo of the broken vase found smashed on the night, she confirms that it was. He asks if anyone else could have got into the room when the panic room was locked. She tells him that nobody could and that it can only be opened from the outside. They step inside the panic room and Richard looks around. He asks if his death was instantaneous, and Lily tells him he was shot with a .22 bullet, upward from the throat and into his skull. He tells her that it could almost be suicide if not for two things. Firstly, the order of events, he asks how Charlie could shoot himself and then lock down a heavy steel door. Secondly, Richard asks if it was suicide, why they didn't find the pistol. Richard muses that if it was murder, but is interrupted by James entering the panic room finishing his musing, that if Charlie was murdered, how did his murderer escape a locked panic room. He introduces himself as James Lavender. Richard asks him where exactly he was standing when the gun was fired. James, with Richard and Lily in tow, steps away from the garden and onto the beachfront, explaining that when the gun was fired, he was on his beach. Richard remarks on his proprietary tone, with James telling him that he does own it. Richard asks what he was doing on the beach, and a flashback scene reveals that he was on the beach kissing a female party guest against a tree, referring to her as a 'special friend'. Richard asks that presumably, the 'special friend' wasn't his wife, to which James explains that that was rather the problem. In a flashback scene, his wife, the distressed woman from when Charlie was found dead, is seen calling out to him on the beach. She sees him with the female party guest, as he looks around in horror. He explains to Richard that his wife Sarah had spotted him. She walks away from the beach, but he catches up to her to stop her. She immediately slaps him and throws a glass of wine over him, but he deflects it over her party dress, as she continues to walk away. Richard tells him that means he must have been at the party when the gun was fired, but James tells him he went back to the beach, but his 'special friend' had gone. Lily asks James how well he knew Charlie and James tells her he didn't, and that Sarah might have invited him. They walk along the beach, much to Richard's great annoyance. Lily asks him if he owns a .22 pistol, to which he tells her that he doesn't and that he knows nothing about guns. James sarcastically notes how Richard hasn't dressed for the Caribbean. Dismissively, Richard asks what James did after he heard the gunshot. James tells him that after the alarms went off, he didn't know what was going on so he hid. In a flashback scene, James is seen hiding behind plants, watching as the police vehicle Lily drove descends the road, he steps onto the road after it, explaining that he emerged when the police did. Richard tells him that the safe was open, and asks how many people knew the combination. He tells him that he and Sarah do. Richard asks if he opened it that night and James tells him he didn't. Richard asks if he gave the combination to Charlie and he tells him that he didn't, with Richard rebuffing that Sarah must have opened it. James tells him that he will have to ask her himself. In a flashback scene, a wine-soaked Sarah walks away from the party with guests watching her. In tears, she runs up the stairs to change out of her dress. Speaking to Richard in the en-suite bathroom, she explains to him that she was here when the alarm went off. Moving into the bedroom, he asks what she did next, to which she tells him she came in here to get dressed. Richard asks Sarah if she invited Charlie to the party and she tells him she didn't, asking if James did. Lily tells her that he didn't either. Richard asks Sarah if she opened the safe and she tells him she didn't, also denying that she gave Charlie the combination when asked. Both Richard and Lily look at Sarah suspiciously. As they exit the house, Lily tells Richard that Sarah is lying. Richard tells her that one of them must be lying, but why. Richard surmises that a British policeman is found dead in a rich man's panic room with an old book clutched in his hands, an opened safe, and a smashed vase. He tells her there are only two suspects without an alibi. Lily responds that one is James because he was alone on the beach, and Sarah because she was taking a shower. Richard tells her that none of that happens because it doesn't answer the question of how did a murderer kills Charlie and escapes from a locked steel room, remarking its impossibility. He requests Lily show him the pieces of the smashed vase and the book Charlie was holding, but requests to see his body. Lily tells him that it won't be possible, to which Richard asks why he can't see the body. Lily tells him that not just the body but all of it because none of it is here. He asks her what she means confusedly. She replies that the evidence is in Basse-Terre. He remarks that they can get sandwiches on the way, to which she emphasises that Basse-Terre is on Guadeloupe, with little reaction from Richard. Finally, she explains that Guadeloupe is a completely different island. He closes the passenger door and asks her to explain. Lily explains that they don't have forensic labs, or ballistics and DNA analysis on the island, so they bag it all and send it to Guadeloupe who does. Frustratingly, he asks how he is supposed to solve the case, and Lily tells him they will receive the reports. Richard asks when and Lily shrugs. He requests the vase and book be sent to him tomorrow morning, to which Lily agrees. She glares at him as they enter the vehicle. Sarah looks down at them as they drive off from the balcony before walking away. On the way to the station, Richard asks Lily how they get anything down on Saint-Marie, to which Lily sarcastically mentions how it's a wonder they get out of bed in the morning. WIP Other Cast Co-Stars * * Deaths * Trivia * Comic Parallels * Goofs/Errors * References External Links *